Versatile Blogger Award

I was tagged for The Versatile Blogger Award from Sunflower Kisses at Lace It Up and Run.  Thank you! 

The rules are to post 7 random facts about myself, and then tag 7 people.  Here we go!

Random Facts:

1. 
   
   I went skydiving once.  Once was enough.
2. 
   
   I went to a college that is mostly science and engineering-oriented, and the student population was close to 75% male.  It was somewhat overwhelming at first, but I got used to it, and stuck like glue to those good girl friends I did find!
3. 
   
   Probably a product of growing up in Iowa, but I enjoy watching wrestling.  REAL wrestling.  Freestyle.  Not that WWE Smackdown junk.  My brothers wrestled since elementary school, and I knew enough to work at the scorer's table during intramural wrestling in college.  FUN!
4. 
   
   I am a long-time veggie-phobe.  I didn't eat my first green bean until age 30.  I still don't like broccoli.  But I have developed a love of spinach!
5. 
   
   I just bought tickets to Yo Gabba Gabba Live -- There's a Party In My City!  It's gonna be AWESOME!
6. 
   
   I've never been much of a girly-girl.  This is why it cracks me up that Katie likes to go to Target wearing a skirt and carrying her Hello Kitty purse.  How can she be my child when I never would've done that at age 5?  Natalie will probably follow in my more tomboy-ish footsteps.
7. 
   
   I lived in the Chicago area after college and often miss the food.  It is hard to beat their deep dish pizzas! 

Tags:

1. 
   
   Elisa @ Blissful E
2. 
   
   Becci @ Something Creative
3. 
   
   Anne @ Rich Visions
4. 
   
   Lisa @ Adventures of the M&Ms
5. 
   
   Jenifer @ 3 Here, 1 There
6. 
   
   Jamie @ Running Diva Mom
7. 
   
   Mary @ Fit This, Girl!

Have fun, ladies!!!

CCC: Let's Celebrate!

After years of design and permitting woes, months of often contentious meetings during the construction process, and more months to finalize all our certifications, the new Community Collection Center is FINALLY open for customers!!!

We received the final certification for the building permit yesterday and were able to open today.  The site supervisor acknowledges that there are some issues they'll need to work out in the first couple of weeks, but they wanted to get the new site open to the public as soon as possible.

Today, at 7:30 AM, our first customer was lined up and ready to go.  Here is Rich, our engineer for the project, bringing in some waste from recent home improvements:

I love how he ends it with a big wave!

Rich has been saying for months that he wanted to be our first customer.  Since he has the inside track (i.e., knowing me), we were able to make that happen.

It happened without a lot of fanfare since our department didn't want a big Grand Opening, but it happened, and I am soooooooooo glad I was there to see it!

Hooray!!!

 

Let's Celebrate!

Over the weekend, we went to the latest Disney on Ice show, Let's Celebrate!  Next time I will pick seats that are more centered, because we had a hard time seeing some things in the corner, but other than that, we had a really good time!  Here are a few pictures as Mickey and Minnie visited various types of celebrations around the world.

Minnie talks to her Fairy Godmother about how to find a prince for Valentine's Day:

Minnie finds Prince Mickey and skates with all the other Disney princes and princesses for Valentine's Day:

The big finale -- all the friends celebrate Christmas together!

Other types of celebrations we got to see were an un-birthday party with the Mad Hatter, Halloween, a luau with Lilo and Stitch, a Japanese cherry blossom festival, a Chinese dragon festival with Mulan, and Mardi Gras with Princess Tiana and Prince Naveen.

I personally preferred the first Disney on Ice show that Katie and I saw last year (review here), but this one was good as well.  Colin was impressed, and Natalie liked it enough to manage sitting still for the majority of it.  We had some fussy moments toward the end when we left without buying a souvenir, but overall, as the girls grow and mature, it gets easier and easier to take them out to shows like this.  Hopefully it only continues to get better as we check the calendar for another show we'd like to see!

Seeds of Purpose

My friend Elisa recently had a Seeds Family Worship CD giveaway, and I was the lucky winner!  I was able to choose one CD from the Seeds collection, and I chose Seeds of Purpose.

What great music!  The words are straight from Scripture, and the musical arrangements are all fantastic.  Everything is catchy, upbeat, and positive.  There is a children's choir participating, which makes it extra-fun to listen to.  I enjoy listening to it in the car and singing along!  My favorite is Seek First, from Matthew 6:31-34.  

31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.



You won't believe how many days I spend singing in my head, "Each day has enough trouble of its own".  How true!  Tomorrow will worry about itself.

The unique packaging of the CD provides you with 2 copies -- one for yourself and one to share.  After much thought, I shared mine with my mom for Mother's Day.  She loves it, too!

Thank you Elisa for sharing this with our family!  I just might have to go buy more from Seeds Family Worship!

Amazing Meal

A while back, I was lucky enough to be a blog giveaway winner.  Mary from Fit This, Girl! was giving away a gift pack from Amazing Grass.  I received a box of their energy bars, some sample packs of drink supplements, and a canister of Amazing Meal pomegranate mango infusion. 

I will confess that I do not have a reputation for being the healthiest eater, so I was a bit hesitant to try something made with wheat grass.  That just sounded waaaaay too healthy for me.  But I always like to try new energy bars, so I dug in to those immediately.  I am happy to report that they were not bad tasting, and they are loooooong gone.  I don't know if they would be my preference when I'm out shopping for snacks, but they were pretty good.

The drink supplements were sort of hit-or-miss.  I think it depends on what drink you are mixing them into!  I tried all of them, but was not a big fan of any (sorry).

So, last up, Amazing Meal!  I was probably the most hesitant about trying this one.  It looks sort of...  funky.  I wasn't sure what I wanted to mix it with.  I tried a few different things.  And finally, I have found my winning combination!  For my morning snack, I now have Amazing Meal mixed with V8 V-Fusion pomegranate blueberry, and my trusty old Luna bar.  Admittedly, I wasn't sold at first, and I have sort of forced myself to drink it over the past couple weeks.  But now, 3 weeks in, I actually like it!

Another note on my morning snack.  I have eaten Luna bars as my snack for years.  At first, I would just have a Luna bar, and it was enough to tide me over until lunch.  While pregnant with Katie, I sometimes needed a 2nd little snack, but not much, and after she was born, I was back to 1 Luna bar again.  However, while pregnant with Natalie, I needed 2 Pop-Tarts and my Luna bar every single morning or I didn't know if I would survive until lunch.  Unfortunately for my backside, after she was born, I kept eating like that and probably didn't need to.  I caught a lot of grief from co-workers about the amount of sugar I was eating every single morning due to my Pop-Tart habit.  After some thought, I knew I needed to find something that would fill me up that was not pure sugar.  So this Amazing Meal really came to me at the right time, when I was considering a change to my morning snack.  One scoop has 100 calories and 10 grams of protein, so it has fewer calories and more nutritional value than Pop-Tarts.  Mixing it with juice and drinking it alongside my Luna bar is more than sufficient to get me to lunch, and it helps me feel a little more balanced throughout the day as well. 

So, thank you Mary, and thank you Amazing Grass!  I'm so happy that I've gone and ordered more of my own volition, and plan on drinking it every day!

(Sorry, Pop-Tarts.  You are tasty and delicious, but just not doing it for me anymore...)

STS-132 Atlantis

Yesterday we got to do something I have ALWAYS wanted to do.  We drove to Cape Canaveral and watched the Atlantis shuttle launch!!!

We left in the morning and drove to Jetty Park near the Port Canaveral cruise terminal.  After being in the van for a while, the girls needed to get out and stretch their legs.

After some time on the playground, we retreated to the van for some lunch and videos.  Ah, the fun of having a DVD player in our own vehicle...

About an hour before liftoff, we walked back to the playground area and set up our umbrella and chairs.  The park was packed, and it was a fun atmosphere to be in as everyone counted down for the 2:20pm launch.  I wasn't in position to get good pictures right at the moment of liftoff, but I scrambled around and got some good ones as Atlantis went up, up, and up!

It was probably the most spectacular thing I have ever seen in real life.  You watch this on TV, but I don't think it really sinks in unless you see it in person.  The amount of thrust required, the "controlled explosion", as one other bystander put it, is phenomenal.  As you're looking at this, just think that we were 10 miles due south of the launch site.  10 miles!  And still, it was incredibly bright, and rather loud.  I was giddy from all the excitement!

I'm so glad the girls were old enough to enjoy the day and the experience.  I don't know if Natalie will remember it as she gets older, but Katie might.  It was gorgeous weather, and just a great day to watch the third-to-last launch for the space shuttle program.  Awesome.

And now, one last picture where I added a marker so you can (hopefully) find Atlantis.  This is 2-3 minutes after the launch.  It really doesn't take that long for them to go sooooo far.

Truly amazing.  Some people thought I was crazy for wanting to drive all those hours, there and back, for 2 minutes of excitement.  It was totally worth it, though.  Totally worth it.

Born to Run

Earlier this week, I finished Born to Run by Christopher McDougall, and all I could say was, "Wow!"

It is a fantastic book.  It starts as the author's journey to find relief from foot pain that is bothering him during his runs, and ends up telling us so much more.  We learn about the Tarahumara, the great running tribe in the Copper Canyons of Mexico.  We learn more about ultrarunning in the United States and get to meet so many interesting personalities that love the sport.  We get lessons in history, anatomy, and physiology.  And we learn that maybe the source of our running injuries is those beloved running shoes that we shell out big bucks for every 500 miles. 

When I get the all-clear from my doctor, I really am tempted to try barefoot running, just because of this book.  It's not just about bare feet, though.  I'll have to change my foot strike and overall motion as well.  It really makes you re-think your shoes when you get all this information that the best thing you could be running in is what God gave you.

If you love running, you should read this book.  Even if you don't love running, I think you would enjoy this book.  It took me a while to get through, reading around my schedule, but at 287 pages, it's really not that bad.  It is fascinating and will keep you enthralled from start to finish.

Mother's Day Recap

I really think that the banquet was the best part of my Mother's Day, and it was on Friday!

Not that yesterday was terrible, just...  not anything special.  I didn't feel particularly loved or honored or any of that jazz that the TV shows and florist commercials and greeting card companies lead you to believe will happen on Mother's Day.

We started off with some gifts for me (new movies!) and some super-cute pictures before church:

Aren't we adorable?  I'm glad we got this while I could still muster a smile!

Church was fine, then things started to go south during grocery shopping.  Normally we let the girls get a free cookie at the bakery at the end if they've been good.  One aisle away, and Natalie punched Katie in the face for no apparent reason.  No cookie for her, which led to her getting angry, but too bad.  Rules are rules.

We got back on track at home and had a good lunch.  Right before nap, I hear Natalie's cry, "I poopded!"  Sure enough, her britches are full.  I hauled her into the bathroom, plopped her on the toilet in case she had any more, and tried to get her clothes rinsed out.  Unfortunately, although I told her to sit still and wait, Natalie decided to take it upon herself to wipe up, proceeding to make a huge mess all over.  Huge.  I dropped what I was doing and cleaned her (and the toilet) all the way up, then went back to rinsing the clothes.  In that time, the girls destroyed a bunch of cleaning/organizing work I'd done in their rooms the day before.  I spent about an hour on it.  They wrecked it in 2-3 minutes.

The girls took good naps, and I enjoyed some sweet, blessed silence while ironing my clothes.  Once everyone was awake, I felt ready to go out and do something with my loving family.  Only no one liked my idea.  I wanted to go for a walk on a new trail just north of our house.  The girls could walk or bike -- their choice.  Nope.  Everyone complained and whined and got upset with me that it was such a terrible idea, why would we want to do that, isn't Gavin (our neighbor) coming with us...  blah blah blah...  I was so angry.  I ran on the trail many times during the half marathon training, so I know it's family-friendly and easy for little kids to navigate.  Heck, it's paved!  But I got outvoted, and we went to the park.

Good to know that my opinion counts on Mother's Day!

We didn't stay too long, and went back to the house to rest a bit before going out to supper.  Rest?  Ha.  Chaos ensued as the girls fought over markers, colored on stuff they shouldn't have been coloring on, and tried to sneak out the scissors when I told them No Cutting.  But no one listens to me.  Why would they?  It's only my special day.

Finally, dinner!  What I'd looked forward to!  We were going to IHOP because I'd never been, and because the girls like to eat pancakes for dinner.  But really, who doesn't?  Our food was delicious, but our service was terrible.  In addition, I still had to work just as hard as I do at home, shuttling people to the bathroom, cleaning up spilled milk, refereeing arguments, sharing my food with tiny little vultures...

Ah, what fun.  So glad Colin could capture this one for me.

Colin did decide to give the girls a bath, you know, so I could relax.  Ha.  All I did was put away laundry and listen to the girls scream at him for not doing bath "right" when I was just in the other room and could be doing it for them the way they like it.  Relaxing, indeed. 

Finally, they went to bed.  I called and complained to my mom.  She laughed and reminded me that some days are like that, even on Mother's Day.  Indeed.  I vented it all in an email to my best girlfriends and finally felt relaxed enough to go to bed.

Really, I'm not bitter.  24 hours later and it's almost funny.

So if you had a good Mother's Day, I'm happy for you, I really am.  And if you didn't, well, I can certainly sympathize!  But don't worry, I think you're terrific even if your family didn't make you feel that way yesterday!!!

Mother's Day Banquet

Friday night, the girls and I attended the annual Mother's Day Banquet at our church.  This is the first time I'd gone, hopeful that they were old enough to cooperate while out in public for so long.  Besides, Colin was working as a server, so if things went south, I knew he could help get us out of there.

Here are the girls before we left for church:

We arrived at church a little early and had time to sneak Katie's outfit for the fashion show back to the dressing room.  We also took one of Natalie's many trips to the bathroom before getting seated.

Before dinner, they had face painting, balloon animals, and portrait opportunities.  How fun!  The hall was decorated in black and white.  At each place setting was a menu and program, as well as a little bowl of brown and white Whoppers.  Each table also had bowls of brown and white M&M's to share.

So guess what the girls filled up on...  Yep.  CHOCOLATE!

The dinner started with salad.  The girls didn't eat it, instead having more chocolate and some of the more nutritious snacks I'd packed in our bag (I knew they wouldn't eat whatever was served, even though I didn't know the menu ahead of time!)  To her credit, Natalie did try an olive off her salad...  and promptly spit the half-chewed remains onto MY salad.  Ugh.  We also had smothered chicken breast, bow tie pasta, green beans, and a roll.  The girls did eat their rolls, so that was fine.  I tried to eat but did not have much time what with all the trips to the bathroom!

As they were serving dessert, Katie took off to change for the fashion show.  So they only brought us 2 strawberry shortcakes, which was fine, because I wouldn't have had room in my belly for all 3.  I did eat 2, though, making up for what I didn't get to eat during dinner!

The first portion of the entertainment was the comedic fashion show.  Here are Lottie Grace and Katie in their "seersucker skirts":

Other favorite in the show were the smoking jacket (fireman's jacket with dry ice in the pockets), plunging neckline (girl wearing a plunger around her neck), and double breasted suit (high school guy wearing a suit with 2 giant bras on his front).

The second act was a dramatic storytelling using audience participation.  Katie ate it up, but Natalie was not so interested.  I walked her around the courtyard a few times, bringing her back in for the last act, the one-man circus.  He was awesome!  Katie and I loved watching him juggle, eat fire, and do all sorts of other tricks.  Natalie was more and more restless, and thankfully, Colin's serving duties were over, so he decided to take her home.  That didn't sit well with Miss Natalie, though, who was angry at him until Katie and I arrived about 20 minutes later.

All in all, we had a great time!  I am so glad we went, so glad the girls (mostly) cooperated, and so glad it was a fun girls' night out.  Can't wait for next year!

Reading...

I've got a lot on my plate right now in terms of reading.  Day and night, I feel like all I've done is read lately...

At work, we recently received proposals back for a 5-year engineering contract.  We only had submittals from 6 firms, which really isn't too bad.  I've had to read more for other contracts!  However, they are not terribly exciting and can all sound the same after a while.  I will easily be able to complete this by next Tuesday when we have our evaluation committee meeting.  I know some of our committee members haven't started yet!  And I fear that I'm taking too long, digging too deep, overanalyzing every word on each page.  I will be glad when this review is complete!

At home, I recently reorganized some of our bookshelves and found 5 books I'd received as gifts that I hadn't read yet.  Four are mystery novels, which I'll hold until later.  Since Natalie is sleeping much better at night and I actually have time to read in the evenings, I jumped right into Born To Run, recently reviewed by Mary at Fit This, Girl!  Wow.  I can not put that thing down!  It is filled with interesting people, interesting stories, and will actually make you want to run an ultramarathon, as Mary warned.  I can't wait to make it all the way through this book.  Fascinating!

Anything exciting that YOU'VE read lately???